Midnight Train to Paris (2 page)

Natalie stands from her desk. “I assume you’ve been working alone on this story these past two weeks?”

“Seeing as how you explicitly told me not to follow this lead, yes; I didn’t want to drag anyone else in.”

“Well, now’s not the time to hog all the glory, Chambord. Get Cooper, Martinez, and Mitchell to dig up everything they can on Senator Williams, his chief of staff, and this mysterious third sister. Does she have a name by the way?”

I’d promised the girl I wouldn’t tell anyone her real name. Not until she knew she was fully protected and Senator Williams was in custody. She trusted me, and as someone who understood her pain, I would never betray her confidence.

“Well?” Natalie asks, resuming her obsessive pen tapping.

A harsh rapping on the door stops me from having to explain to my editor why even
she
can’t be in the know this time.

“Can it wait?” Natalie calls, but Dave, one of our new interns, peeks his head in anyway.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a detective here to see Jillian. He says it’s urgent.”

Natalie shoots me a questioning glance. “About the Williams story, I suppose?”

A nervous tingle shoots down my spine. Only one of my other colleagues knows that I’m onto this creep. I hadn’t even used my usual police contacts to get to the bottom of this story. I knew I’d never get a word out of the third sister if I didn’t gain her trust on my own. Plus, her allegation that Williams had someone covering for him in D.C. law enforcement probably wasn’t too far off. Powerful, sleazy men like him usually had equally corrupt cohorts working for them all over the place.

So why in the hell is there a detective here to see me?

“Send him in,” Natalie says.

As soon as the intern reveals the mystery detective, I feel my stomach tying up in a fit of knots.

Samuel Kelly crosses the room before I can let a word slide past my lips, his cool green eyes and sharp black suit bringing back memories I’d long ago chosen to bury.

He doesn’t bother shaking my hand or introducing himself. Instead, the man I’d sworn off forever stops just inches from me, and by the lack of a smile on his rugged face, I’m certain he’s not here to reminisce.

“Jillian.” Samuel nods at me, his expression all business. “I need to speak with you privately.”

The sight of his tall, firm body, his broad shoulders, and those full lips steals my focus
and
my breath in one fell swoop.

I don’t trust myself alone with Samuel.

Not today. Not ever.

“Whatever you need to talk to me about, you can say it right here.” I cross my arms and glare at him underneath a mask of lust, anger, pain, and love. I
will not
show him the power he still has over me.

Samuel shoots a reluctant glance toward Natalie, then levels his determined gaze at me. “Three women have been reported missing after taking a luxury train traveling through the Swiss Alps, en route to Paris. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your sister, Isla, is one of those three women.”

“That’s impossible,” I say, ignoring the memory of Isla’s snow-covered, blood-streaked face from my terrifying dream.

“Of course that’s impossible,” Natalie echoes, stalking around her desk, one hand on her hip. “That’s impossible because Jillian doesn’t
have
a sister.”

Samuel raises a questioning brow at me, but I can’t respond. All of the breath has been sucked out of my lungs. Could Isla really be missing? In the
Swiss
Alps
? And why on earth is
Samuel
the one delivering this news?

“Jillian, is there a room where I can speak with you alone?” Impatience lines Samuel’s deep voice as he eyes me suspiciously. He remembers my secrets, my lies. After all, in the end, those secrets were our undoing.

He takes another step toward me, then leans into my ear. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste,” he whispers.

The familiar scent of his cologne makes it hard for me not to brush my hands over his sexy five o’clock shadow and down the front of his chest, the way I always used to every time I kissed him. It’s been six years since I touched Samuel, but the muscle memory is still overwhelming…and maddening.

“Is it true then? You have a sister?” Natalie asks, an incredulous look shooting from her stone black eyes.
Finally
, some emotion.

I nod at my editor, the woman who trusts me to bring her the truth, and only the truth. Except this time, I’d lied about something as basic as having a sister.

And from all of my years reporting for Natalie, I know that she hates liars
almost
as I much as I do.

“Yes, Natalie,” I say quietly, feeling suffocated under years of lies. Lies I can’t take back now. “I have a sister.”

I avert my eyes away from Samuel, furious that he brought this mess into my office, but even more furious at myself for asking him to talk in front of Natalie. He knows nothing about who I’ve become in the years since we split, yet I’m certain he’ll see the same Jillian he knew before—the Jillian who wouldn’t tell him the truth about her past.

If only he’d known
why
I couldn’t tell him.

“You’ll have time to explain later,” Samuel says to me. “But right now, I need to ask you a few questions.”

I turn back to Natalie, and for the first time since she hired me as an eager college graduate, I can barely look her in the eye.

“Please get the others on the story,” I say to her. “I’ll join them in the conference room as soon as I’m finished with this. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

I lead Samuel out of Natalie’s office without giving her a chance to respond. But as soon as we take a few steps down the hallway, he places a hand on my arm, the mere sensation of his touch sending a shock wave through my core.

“This isn’t a misunderstanding,” he says firmly. “You know I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

The sting in his tone makes me flinch.

My legs feel wobbly as I continue down the hallway in silence, and even though Samuel’s crisp black suit is swishing along beside me, I feel totally alone, wishing I had someone to hold me up.

But I don’t. I’ve always only had myself to count on. And today would be no different.

Inside our small conference room at the end of the hallway, I close the door and round the table to reach the window. I need to get as far away from him as I can. I need air.

Outside, the snow is swirling in circles as a harsh wind plows through D.C., rattling the windowpanes, whistling past the building. Is Isla lost somewhere in the snow, crying out for me?

I turn to face Samuel, clutching the windowsill behind me. “What’s going on with Isla? And why in the hell is the CIA involved?”

Samuel holds my gaze as he walks around the table, stopping only a few inches from me. I can’t help but notice that the sharp white shirt he’s wearing underneath his suit
isn’t
adorned with a tie. He always hated wearing ties…or rather, he hated anyone
telling
him he had
to wear a tie.

That was one of the only things Samuel and I had in common when we’d dated back in college—we never took orders from anyone. I
still
didn’t.

“I’m not with the CIA anymore.” Reaching into his breast pocket, Samuel produces a business card. “I’m a private investigator for an international agency that specializes in finding missing persons, and I’ve been assigned as one of the lead investigators on your sister’s case.”

“Isla isn’t missing and she doesn’t need a fancy investigator to find her. This is just another one of her disappearing acts.” I release my death grip on the windowsill and take a step closer to Samuel. This has to be a mistake. Isla can’t really be missing.

“When was the last time you spoke with your sister, Jillian?” Samuel refuses to show any emotion on that chiseled face of his, but I remember a different time. A time when his eyes were full of lust for me, filled with a hot, fiery passion. A time when his strong hands owned my body, his lips devouring me until I lost all control.

Samuel was like a drug to me…a dangerous drug that made me lose all my defenses. A drug that made me want to tell the truth about my past.

A past that could never be unraveled.

I shake away the memories. I’d already told Samuel too much. I couldn’t have him fishing around about my sister.

“Isla called me yesterday evening,” I snap. “She’s clearly fine, so you can take that white horse you swooped in on and march it right back out into the snow.”

“Did you speak with her?”

I don’t tell Samuel that I was inside a drug-infested shack in Anacostia, tracking down the source for my latest story, when Isla’s call came through. I don’t tell him that it had been the third time this week Isla had tried to get in touch and the third time I’d chosen to put my job first and ignore her call.

Instead, I swallow my guilt and simply say, “No, I missed her.”

“Did she leave a voicemail?” Samuel asks.

“I think she might have, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet. I’m about to break a huge story, and—”

“Where’s your phone?”

“It’s downstairs on my desk.”

“On my way out, I’ll need you to check your voicemail. Any indication Isla may have left you as to what went on yesterday could help us find her. So when was the last time you spoke with her?”

“It was about three weeks ago,” I answer, not even sure if my timeline is correct. “She was in Paris, where she’s been living off and on for the past two years, and she sounded…good. We didn’t talk long—just a few minutes—but she didn’t say anything to indicate that something was wrong. I’m sure she just decided to take off and travel without telling anyone. She’s been doing that for years.” But even as the words exit my mouth, visions of Isla’s pale, distressed face cloud my head, those eerie, sparkling white flakes swallowing her up.

Closing my eyes, I wish away the nightmare. The harsh blizzard swirling around her violet eyes. And that teardrop of sizzling red blood.

I know what Isla’s blood looks like. I’ve seen it once before.

As her voice echoes in my mind, her cries pleading for me to come find her, I realize that Isla has never sounded so weak, so terrified.

Not even when death stared her in the face.

Something isn’t right.

“Jillian,” Samuel says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I think you need to sit down.”

I want to argue, to scream at him that he’s wrong, but the image of Isla’s petrified eyes won’t leave me. Numbness settles into my bones as I slide into the cold black chair.

Something has happened to my sister, and I wasn’t there to protect her.

Once again, I’m too late.

“Where is she? Tell me what happened,” I demand, my own voice trembling now, terrified to hear the truth.

“Isla was last seen taking the late night Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train through the Swiss Alps,” Samuel says, taking a seat next to me. “In the morning, when the train arrived in Paris, Isla wasn’t in her sleeping compartment, but her purse and suitcase were left on the train. There were two other girls on the same train last night who didn’t deboard in Paris this morning either. And just like Isla, their belongings were left on the train.”

“But how is that possible?” I ask. “Were they…were they taken?” Bile coats my throat as I try to keep from getting dizzy.

“After the train left Lausanne, Switzerland, which is the station Isla boarded from, it stopped briefly at the French–Swiss border because of a mechanical difficulty. Most of the passengers had already retired to their sleeping compartments by that point. We believe Isla and the other two girls were abducted from their sleeping compartments during that stop.”

Once again, my breathing fails me as I attempt to wrap my head around the word that flowed so effortlessly from Samuel’s lips…
abducted
.

This can’t be happening.

“What was Isla doing on that train?” I whisper, wishing desperately that I knew the answer to that question. Wishing that I didn’t have to gaze into Samuel’s sea-green eyes, the eyes that had always shot straight to the heart of me, past all the bullshit, past all the lies.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” he says. “My team of investigators is already there, working with local law enforcement to interview the other passengers on the train, and a search and rescue team has been called in to comb the area. I’ll be meeting them there first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Why were you hired to find Isla and the other girls if you’re living in D.C.?”

“I don’t live in D.C. anymore. Ever since…” Samuel trails off, looking past me and out the window. His eyes glaze over briefly before he clears his throat. “Ever since I took this job, I go wherever they need me to be.”

“I’m sorry about Karine,” I blurt, knowing full well that it’s too late for an apology. That I should’ve called Samuel when his wife went missing four years ago. I should’ve called him when my own newspaper covered her abduction…and her murder.

“It’s in the past,” he says, standing abruptly from the table.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, registering the pain flashing through his eyes.

His jaw tightens as he grips the edge of the chair. “I’ll do everything I can to find your sister, Jillian. You have my word.”

I stand up, remembering all the ways I’d imagined running into Samuel again. Not once did I envision it like this.

“Who hired you?” I ask.

“Frédéric Morel, Isla’s fiancé.”

This time, it’s my turn to grasp onto the chair. “Isla doesn’t have a fiancé,” I say through gritted teeth.

“And according to her fiancé, Isla doesn’t have a twin sister,” Samuel says. “Apparently, you haven’t been the only one keeping secrets.”

A shaky sigh escapes my lips. How could she not have told me she was
engaged
?

“The secrets are going to have to come out now, Jill. I know you’ve never liked to open up about what happened to you and Isla in the past, but this isn’t the time to hold anything back. Not if you want to find your sister alive.”

Downstairs, the ringing telephones and tapping computer keys have transformed into nails down a chalkboard. All I can think about is Isla drowning in an avalanche of snow. The business of the newspaper is irrelevant. I have to find my sister.

I lead Samuel to my desk, where I ransack my mess of notebooks and newspaper clippings, searching frantically for my cell phone. With shaky hands, I pull it out from underneath the list of contacts that led me to Sister Number Three in the Williams story.

The thought of Parker Williams’s dirty face, of his big, rough hands makes me want to vomit. Isla would want him behind bars too. I would deal with that scumbag later…he could count on it.

One new voicemail.

“I can’t listen to this in here,” I tell Samuel. “It’s too loud. Follow me.”

I sling my purse over my shoulder, then lead him out of the suffocating newsroom, through the fancy lobby and out into the blinding white snow. It must be freezing outside, but I don’t register the cold as I dial my voicemail. I turn away from Samuel and focus on the peak of the Washington Monument, which is barely visible against the dull white sky and the flakes that swirl all around it.

The streets of D.C. are eerily quiet. Not a single car passes as I wait to hear my sister’s voice. The nation’s capital has shut down due to the twelve inches of snow that’s predicted to dump on the city over the next twenty-four hours, only two days before Christmas.

“Is it her?” Samuel asks, but I hold my finger up to shush him.

“Jillian…oh, Jilly,” Isla’s voice comes over the line, clear, excited. “You’re not going to believe what I’ve done this time!” She pauses, letting out a devious giggle. “I know we haven’t talked in a while…I mean really talked, and I miss you, Jilly. I…” Isla pauses as static rings into the phone, then a loud whistle.

A train whistle.

I brace myself against the cool bricks of the building as Isla’s voice returns, softer now. “I have something important to tell you, Jillian. Please call me back. I—I’m…” Isla stops speaking, but the phone doesn’t cut off. I can hear Isla’s heavy breathing. Then a loud rustling noise followed by a grunt—a
man’s
grunt.